Nanomedicine | Membraneless Organelle | Immunongineering | Ocular Delivery


BIO-INSPIRED SELF ASSEMBLY

Natural species with sophisticated architectures carry highly efficient functions. Viruses, as one of the examples, are the most efficient gene transfection agents in nature. Their biological function is governed by the sophisticated structure of the capsid, as well as the its structure transition during the infection process. Inspired by the structure-functional relationship of the natural species, this project aims to mimic virus to develop efficient gene delivery vectors.
Our strategy is to use short synthetic peptides to co-assemble with nucleic acids (including DNA and RNA). By varying the peptide sequence, we have developed several generations of artificial viruses, including parapox virus-like nanococoons and adenovirus-like nanoberries. The β-sheet peptide nano-assemblies mimic the virus capsids, protecting the nucleic acids from enzyme degradation. Moreover, nanoberries induce significantly high transgene expression in HEK293 cell line.

The current focus of this project is
  1. To enhance the gene transfection in different primary cell lines through studying the mechansims on the aspects of overcoming the different cellular barriers
  2. To explore the application of these vectors for gene and drug delivery.

Related publications

  • Ni R., Chau Y, Nanoassembly of Oligopeptides and DNA Mimics the Sequential Disassembly of a Spherical Virus, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.2019,58,2–8
  • Ni R., Feng R., Chau Y., Synthetic Approaches for Nucleic Acid Delivery: Choose the Right Carriers, Life, 2019, 9(3),59, DOI:10.3390/life9030059
  • Liu J., Ni R. and  Chau Y., Self-assembled Peptidic Nanomillipede to Fabricate Tuneable Hybrid Hydrogel, Chemical Communications, 2019,55,7093-7096  DOI: 10.1039/C9CC02967B 
  • Ni R, Liu J,Chau Y., Ultrasound-facilitated assembly and disassembly of pH-sensitive self-assembly peptide, RSC Advances, 2018, 8, 29482 - 29487  DOI: 10.1039/C8RA04391D
  • Ni R and Chau Y. "Tuning the Inter-nanofibril Interaction to Regulate the Morphology and Function of Peptide/DNA Co-assembled Viral Mimics",Angew. Chem, 2017, 56(32), 9356-9360  doi: 10.1002/anie.2017035
  • Ni R, Zhou J, Hossain N and Chau Y. "Virus-inspired nucleic acid delivery system: Linking virus and viral mimicry". Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. 2016. 106(Pt A), 3-26.